The Republican nominee was clearly looking to echo the success of Barack Obama’s election logo back in 2008 and 2012. The simple blue, red and white became a symbol of new horizons under his presidency.

When will we know the result of the US election?

It is going to be a long night on Tuesday, November 8 – with results announced into the morning.

The election will see Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump battle it out to become the 45th president of the United States.

Polls across all 50 states in America and Washington DC will open from around 6am and 7am (that’s 11am and 12pm in the UK) and close between 7pm and 8pm (midnight and 1am GMT).

During that time, around 120 million Americans will cast their votes. This year is also the first time new voting laws will come into place in 14 states.

Here is when we can expect the results to be announced.

When will the US election results be announced?

Halloween masks for Clinton and Trump (Picture: Getty Images)

5.01am November 8 (00.01 ET) – The first results will be announced in Dixville Notch in New Hampshire. The results are usually announced here, sometimes 24 hours before the rest of the country, first due to the small village just 20 miles south of the Canadian border only having so few residents.The village has a tradition of voting in the middle of the night to ensure an early result, gathering in the ballroom of a ski resort before other polls even open to announce the result. New Hampshire is also expected to declare shortly after too.

11am November 8 (6am ET) – Majority of polls open. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will be seen casting their votes shortly after this in New York. Polling gets under way.

Midnight November 8 (7pm ET) – Polls begin to close with predictions made based on exit polls. Results will be released state by state from this time onward throughout the evening/morning.

4am November 9 (11pm ET Nov 8) – This is the earliest time the likely result can be predicted. The result could come any time from this point on with speeches from Clinton and Trump.

Swing states, much like swing seats in the UK, give a good indication of how a party is doing and can be crucial in the final outcome. In 2000 Florida played a decisive role when George W. Bush beat Al Gore by just 500 votes out of 5.8 million to claim all its electoral college votes.

The key states to look out for include Florida, Ohio, Nevada and Georgia.

Securing all of those would provide the winner with 69 electoral college votes and the Democrats have the edge in the first three, while the Republicans look set to win Georgia and its 16 votes.

Will there be exit polls?

Hotly-contested states like Florida could play a decisive role (Picture: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Opinion polls will be carried out through-out election day ready for when polls close.

But while they could be a good gauge of which way an election will swing, they have been unreliable in past years.

When will we know the result?

Voters will go to the polls on November 8 (Picture: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

By around 4am in the UK (11am on the east coast of the US) it is usually obvious which side has won. Each side will be hoping to win 270 electoral votes so once most of the swing states have announced the candidate edging closest to this figure will become clear.

But this is not always the case. In the 2000 election between George Bush and Al Gore the result wasn’t announced until the end of election day.

The result could even be a tie with both candidates getting 269 votes. If this happens, it falls to the House of Representatives to choose the next president.

Once a winner has emerged both candidates traditionally give speeches, one to claim victory and one to concede defeat. However, Donald Trump has already claimed that he will not accept the result if he loses, so be prepared to see a change in usual format if this is the case.

How does the US election work?

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The United States carries out elections for its House of Representatives (like the House of Commons), the Senate (The House of Lords) and the US President.

Many of those votes will take place in some capacity on the same day as the electorate picks who it wants to be the 45th president.

The way that the president is chosen is slightly different to how prime ministers are chosen.

Instead of a voting directly for their president, voters actually vote for people called ‘electors’ in the electoral college system.

The larger a state’s population the more electors it has – California has 55 while Alaska has three.

The candidate with the most electors wins all the state’s college votes (e.g. 55 in California)

The first candidate to win enough states to get 270 electoral votes will become president.

Who are the candidates?

If you only take a passing interest in the US election, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a straight shootout between the Republican and Democratic nominees.

And while it is true that only two candidates have a realistic chance of winning, more participate and this year may have a bigger say than every before.

Hillary Clinton, Democratic Party

(Picture: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Donald Trump, Republican Party

(Picture: Ralph Freso/Getty Images)

Jill Stein, Green Party

(Picture: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party

(Picture: William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images)

Because of the widespread dissatisfaction with the the major party presidential nominees, third party candidates like Jill Stein and Gary Johnson may have more of a say.

Both have been polling ahead of where they were four years ago – Johnson as high as 13% and Stein as high as 7% – but were unable to secure a place in the first televised debates as they didn’t meet the 15% benchmark.

The selection process for the TV debates has been highly criticised, in particular by Johnson who said not being on them effectively killed his campaign.

But the two candidates have caused enough concern for Barack Obama to warn that supporting either of them is a ‘vote for Trump’.

When will it end?

A supporter of President Obama rejoices at the news of The President’s re-election in Times Square (Picture: Angelo Merendino/Corbis via Getty Images)

If the election produces a decisive result then the winning candidate will assemble a cabinet, while the ‘lame duck’ president prepares to leave.

President Trump or President Clinton will then been inaugurated on January 20 as per the US constitution.